“I want to make one thing perfectly clear today,” Ruffalo said. “A stand-alone Hulk movie will never happen because Universal has the rights to the stand-alone Hulk movie and, for some reason, they don’t know how to play well with Marvel. And clearly they don’t like money. But I feel like I have two or three years before I’m too old to play the Hulk.
“We’ve talked about it and I just don’t see it in the cards.”
Actually Marvel have the rights back – to make it, but Universal still have distribution rights. Meaning that Marvel have to give first rights to distribute to Universal (making them a heap of free money & losing Marvel a heap).
If Disney wanted the rights to this character they would provide Universal with an offer they couldn’t refuse. The financial reality is Incredible Hulk barely outgrossed Hulk. There’s no money in a solo film.
There was no money for it in 2008. Ever since the first Avengers, Hulk has always been an audience favorite. In a post Avengers superhero movie age where something like Guardians has made huge bank, I don’t see any reality where a new solo Hulk film makes less than $700 million. Based off of how Thor Ragnarok does I’m almost willing to bet Universal and Marvel will start talking.